The Iceberg Theory In Ernest Hemingway's A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

There is a diversity of ways as to how an author may want to illustrate an idea or concept, many of which use a varsity of literary devices to accomplish the transcendence of the message to the public. Ernest Hemingway is an author who immensely succeeds in transcending our perspective of the symbols and context clues into something beyond the words we read on the page. The “iceberg theory”, mastered by Ernest Hemingway, gives way to the idea that less is more, and that we, as an author, only need to give enough information for the reader to understand the situation, rather than spelling it out for them. The definition of Psychoanalytic Theory is “the method of psychological therapy in which free association, dream interpretation, and analysis of resistance and transference are used to explore repressed or unconscious impulses, anxieties, …show more content…
The old man and older waiter in “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” struggle to find a way to deal with their despair, but even their best method simply subdues the despair rather than cure it. The old man has tried to rid himself of his despair in several unsuccessful attempts. We learn that he is wealthy, but his money hasn’t helped, we then discover that he once had a wife, but is no longer married. We also find out that he tried to commit suicide to rid himself of loneliness and the feelings of despair for good, but fails as his niece had saved him from himself. The only way the old man feels that he can deal with the sentiments of the oblivion and his insignificance in the world is to sit for hours in a clean, well-lit café drinking his worries away, feeling nothing but the emptiness of the room throughout the late-night hours. Although he is essentially in his own private world, sitting by himself in the café is not the same as being